You can pretty much consider this chapter to be a representation of Act 2. Oda introduced us to Wano in Ac 1 but now were slowly being given the various stories of Wano. Deepening our understanding of it's History and Characters. Every character really is their own story and Oda is giving us each of them one by one. So when this all concludes we'll thoroughly understand just how much their victory means to each and every one of them.

I'm actually really looking forward to seeing the conclusion of each character's story.

I still stand by what I said previously about Zoro's Swords.

I still see Zoro putting Shusui back at the end of Wano. Not only is it a poetic way to wrap up that story but it's also symbolic of the strawhats righting the wrongs, and undoing the tragedies of their world.

It was Kaidou who crushed Moria. Forcing Moria to create the undead army and steal Ryuuma's corpse in the process. After Moria is defeated Zoro acquires the sword and makes his way to Wano. Then Kaidou the man who was the cause of all the tragedy that befell Wano is defeated. The sword is put back to where it belongs. Having this happen alongside Wano being restored to a paradise after Kaidou's defeat just seems fitting imo.

I don't see him keeping Enma either even if he does use it for a time.
I think it's nice to have the future World's Greatest Swordsman use some of the world's most famous blades for a time but I'm still hoping for all 3 cursed blades to be Zoro's endgame swords.

No one uses them and it presents an opportunity for Zoro to make those swords his own rather than using the famed blade of someone else. Enma is famous because it was Oden's sword and what he accomplished with it, and Shusui is famous because it was Ryuuma's sword and what he accomplished with it. I want Zoro to make his own swords famous through his own accomplishments. To make his own legend.

Everyone fears the Kitetsu blades and avoids them like the plague but Zoro is shown to be the only man crazy enough to use them. Not to mention his character theme is Asura the Anti-God and he's always being compared to a demon himself. Making him wield all 3 cursed blades just fits his character extremely well.

@Bigivel:

Again, how was a life or death battle, if Katakuri did everything to not kill Luffy?

He was trying to kill Luffy. That was his goal. He may not have done everything he could have to kill Luffy but thats only due to the fact that katakuri isn't excessive. He only does as much as necessary. Hence why he thought suffocating Luffy in a pile of Mochi would have sufficed even though he probably could have done more.

And you're telling me that the attack was "truly lethal"?

Stop overthinking things. I obviously meant that tearing off a piece of his torso is more lethal a blow than any he'd received uptil that point.

It is the case.

It's not. But the annoying semantics game we're playing isn't getting us anywhere.

What has "having pride in his strength" as anything to do with hurting himself, knocking out his sister and crew and endangering and betraying the family?

He didn't like the fact that he spent so many hours trying to and failing to kill the man who he originally saw as below him. So in his desire to fight on Luffy's level he injured himself. Not that complicated at all.

Are you saying that he only cared about his strength?

No.

and didn't he thought Luffy was beneath him until just that moment? He clearly says that!(Even though Luffy didn't nothing to change the thinking).

There was a clear transition in Katakuri's perspective over the course of the fight.

https://orojackson.com/threads/a-manly-duel-the-problem-with-luffy-vs-katakuri.47732/page-2#post-2969333

@Bigivel:

Did he tried to kill him?

Yes. It was a life or death battle. It was the entire reason they were fighting. lol.

Only managed to land a shot with the help from his little sister?

He only managed to land a truly lethal blow because of Flampe.

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@Bigivel:

most of the time they are related and even sometimes used as synonym, this is one of the casees.

It's not.

Honour, meaning the morally right thing for him to do.

Honor has nothing to do with "the right thing".

Pride, is dignity. Being that dignity the right thing to do.

Dignity isn't "the right thing to do" either.

and it was never showed he was one person that only cared about fights,

No one claimed that. Having pride in his strength and "only caring about fights" are two different things.

@Maju:

the plotholes and people acting out of character or not using reason don't get solved if you binge-read

Most of which was summed up here.

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@Maju:

-why a glutton like big mom would wait so much to eat her precious wedding cake when there was not going to be a wedding in the first place? it would have made sense if the cerimony was actually real,but since she was not she was free to eat the cake whenever she wanted.

It should be rather obvious that the actual purpose of the Tea Party is Big Mom's desperate attempt to replicate and relive the "best day of her life". It adds to just how damaged she is as a person.

@Bigivel:

it was trying to show "honor"

No it wasn't. That scene had nothing to do with honor. It was about Pride. Katakuri had been trying to kill the man for hours then only managed to land a shot with help from his little sister. Of course he'd take it personally.

That is why there is a ton of conversations trying to make sense of Katakuri, when that happens with a character is usually because he is horrible done,

Or for all we know a bunch of people just have poor reading comprehension. Or the translations suck which can lead to confusion. Placing the blame on the character or the author is unfounded imo.

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@kouch_lee:

Loved this chapter. Bittersweet ending for what seemed to be Oda's homage to Disney, but that makes it all the more special. The SHs didn't get to save everyone, but they did save Sanji, they did distract one of the 4 mightiest beings in the opverse long enough to escape via the simple act of cooking a cake, they stole a Road Poneglyph, and earned the uber fanboyism of their second in command.

In exchange, the entire Germa military + the fishman pirates + Jinbe + Pekoms are now put in jeopardy. This is the minimum payment one should be forced to pay when defying one of the strongest beings in the known world, me thinks.

It's surprisingly low key, it cuts things in half, it leaves a sour aftertaste. . .and it's something that was we didn't get from One Piece since Sabaody.

Honestly, I'm very positive about this arc in general, but before this chapter I would've never dreamt of putting it in my top 10 favorite arcs ever. This chapter made me think very hard about it. It might've very well singlehandedly put it up there.

The last page is one of the very best we've ever got. The Katakuri/Brulee interaction is awesome. The visual representation and bittersweet aftertaste of the Pudding scene, the Sanji/Carrot interaction. . .this is seriously one of the best chapters in the entire series. Just like the 900 chapter was. And plenty of others throughout this beautiful arc.

Really convinced, years down the line, people will look back at Tottoland and feel waaaay more positive towards it compared to what we're seeing now (which, to my understanding, is a not very good general consensus, seeing how people have been wishing for its end for like. . .30 chapters now? 35? 40?). Or not. We'll see.

To me, hands down the number 1 post time skip arc by far. And something tells me, Wano will have a massive HARD time measuring up to it.

^Pretty much this.

Years down the line when One Piece is completed the people who are gonna be able to read One Piece in one go are gonna find this arc amazing.

@FelRes:

Do you really need a 30 minute video to understand the concept of family in One Piece.

Some people do. But it's really just an enjoyable analysis. A large portion of it pertains to Whole Cake as well.

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@FelRes:

It's largely the insisting that we all should have seen some 30 minute video when we could just listen to Ore-tachi wa Family again.

I wasn't insisting that you should do anything. I worded my question that way because I wasn't sure if someone posted it already. I didn't want to assume you guys hadn't already watched it.

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@theackwardstation:

What's the problem of making an analysis? Nobody's claiming to be a visionary, just exposing the observable concept inside a structured thesis, something that should be done more often in the shonen community.

^This guy gets it. Nothing wrong with having a structured breakdown of one of the core themes. It's much more interesting imo than just lazily slapping the friendship label on it.

@Dahaka.:

Does anyone else think Luffy vs Katakuri was weirdly written?

I mean, at first the whole fight was all about Luffy improving his CoO and finding out how to bypass Katakuri's godly haki(by making him lose his cool)

And then it simply ends on Luffy randomly coming up with a power up that makes him fast enough to land hits on katakuri, which makes the whole 20 chapters of build up kinda irrelevant, because neither Luffy's CoO nor Katakuri's weakness came into play in the climax of the fight.

Not really.

Just curious, but you guys have all seen this already right?

Totally unrelated but, this was a nice little analysis on the original crew members.

@Sereques:

Lets accept we blame that ass pull on awakening, how is he putting Haki on something he did not touch? Zoro's slash came from the sword he's holding, Mingo is making some kind of contact with the strings. How is Katakuri coating galactic donuts?

Obviously Haki can be mentally imbued onto anything inherently connected to the users's will. Thought this was discussed already.